There was a country estate, untouched by war, separated from the clinic in Springfield by about three blocks and two-and-a-half thousand years of divergent history. Brill had picked up a courier from somewhere nearby and driven Miriam round to a safe house on a quiet residential street; whereupon the courier had carried her across, back into the depths of someone else's history.

It was, in many respects, like her time as an involuntary guest of Baron Henryk. There was no electricity in the great stonewalled house, and no central heating or water on tap, and she was surrounded by servants who spoke to her only in hochsprache. Brill had left her in the hands of the maidservants, and she'd felt an unpleasant tension as the chattering women dressed her in clothes from the landholder's wife's chests. Trapped again: She felt a quite unexpected sense of panicky claustrophobia rising as they fussed over her. It had been hard to stand still, giving no sign of her urge to bolt and run: She forced herself to recall Brill's oath. She won't leave me here, she told herself.

To distract herself she fought her unease by trying to puzzle out their story. The landholder, she eventually concluded, was away in the wars, a relative of the Clan families: He'd sent his dependents to safety for the duration, leaving the staff behind with instructions to look after whomever the council billeted on them. Which meant they were expecting to host one Lady Helge, house and braid and surname unspecified, not Miriam-a woman from another world. You let yourself get trapped again, a little corner of her worried. They laid out a trap and let you walk right into it.

But there were significant differences from Henryk's idea of hospitality, despite the primitive amenities and unwanted expectations. Her bedroom door had a lock, but she had her own key. The afternoon after her arrival, trying to dispel the anxiety and claustrophobia of being Helge again, she'd ventured from her room to look around the grand hall and the main rooms of the estate. When she'd returned she found the battered suitcase she'd borrowed from Erasmus sitting beside the canopy bed. A quick inspection with shaking hands revealed her laptop and the revolver Burgeson had given her. And not only had they let her keep the locket James Lee had given her-Brill had winked, and given her a second, smaller locket on a gold bracelet. None of these things were of any immediate use, but collectively they conveyed a powerful message: The trap has a key, and you are not a prisoner.

She'd sat on the bed, holding the laptop and shaking, carefully stifling her sobs of relief lest the servants waiting outside take fright. When she'd calmed down sufficiently to function again, she checked over the small pistol, reloading it with ammunition from its case. She let the hammer down on an empty cylinder, and slid it into a pouch she'd found cunningly stitched inside the cuff of her left sleeve; I can make this work, she told herself. I've got to make this work. The one common drawback of both her own plan, and her mother's, was that they depended on her living as the Countess Helge voh Thorold d'Hjorth. Not playacting in fancy dress, but actually being a lady of the Gruinmarkt-at least unless and until Iris's hastily improvised junta secured its grip on power, or the US military figured out a way to claw a hole in the wall between the worlds. Which could happen tomorrow-or in ten years' time.

The alternatives were all worse: a gamble on the questionable mercies of the DEA's witness protection scheme, an even riskier gamble on Erasmus and his ruthless political allies. Between her mother's Machiavellian proposal and the naïve optimism of the young progressive faction, there was at least some room for her to get a grip on events. "As long as Henryk doesn't rise from the dead I'll be alright," she muttered under her breath. (Keep telling yourself that, mocked her inner skeptic. They'll find some other way to screw you…)

If Roland were still alive, and had actually been the knight in shining armor he'd looked like at first, she wouldn't have to sort everything out for herself. But first he'd disappointed her, then he'd died trying to live up to her expectations, and now there was nothing to do but press on regardless. No more heroes, she resolved. I'm going to have to do this all on my own again, damn it. Which, semi-randomly, reminded her of the old song. "What do I have to do to get a CD player in here?" she asked herself, and managed a croak of laughter.

A tentative voice piped up somewhere behind her, near the door: "Milady, are you alright?"

Miriam-Helge-turned her head. "I am-well," she managed in her halting hochsprache. "What is it?"

The servant, a maid of the bedchamber-evidently of a higher status than a common or garden serving woman-studiously ignored her reddened eyes. "Milady? I beg you to receive a visitor downstairs?" The maid continued for another sentence, but Helge's hochsprache was too patchy to catch more than a feminine prefix and an implication of status.

"In a, a minute." Helge reached for one of the canopy posts and levered herself upright. "Speak, tell, her I will see them." She took a step towards the heavy oak dresser with the water jug and bowl that stood in for a sink. The door closed behind her. "Ouch." She'd kept the ankle boots she'd acquired in New London because they fit her feet better than any shoes in milady's wardrobe, but she'd been wearing them all day and her feet were complaining. She examined her face ruefully in the precious aluminum-framed mirror. "I'm a mess," she told it, and it winced, agreeing. "Better clean up."

Five minutes later, Helge closed her door and marched onto the landing at the head of the grand staircase, a wide wooden platform that circled the inside wall of the central hall. She gripped the handrail tightly as she descended. It wouldn't do to fall downstairs, I might lose the baby. She tried not to succumb to the fit of dark humor: She had a feeling that if she aired that particular joke she might scare people. Not, she was determined, that she was going to bond even remotely with the kid. That would be too much like collusion. I wonder who wants to see me?

The butler, or equerry or whatever, was waiting at the foot of the stairs with a gaggle of maidservants lined up behind him. "Milady." He bowed, almost sweeping the floor. "Her ladyship awaits you in the green lounge."

Miriam nodded acknowledgement. Who? Two unfamiliar servants waited outside the door he indicated, standing at ease with almost military precision. "Introduce me," she said.

"Aye, milady." The equerry walked towards the door, which opened before him. "This is Lady Thorold-"

"We've met," said Helge. She swept past the startled equerry. Olga met her halfway in a hug. "Helge! You look well. Have they been looking after you?"

"Well enough so far." She hugged Olga back, then took a deep breath and stepped aside to look at her. With her hair up, wearing an embroidered riding habit, Olga almost looked like the blond ingenue Miriam had mistaken her for when they'd first met, almost a year ago. "You're looking good yourself." She took another deep breath, feeling the knot of anxiety begin to loosen. "But how have you been? Brill tried to bring me up to date on some of the details, but…"

"It has been difficult." Olga looked slightly pained for a moment, then her brows wrinkled into a thunderous frown. "But leave that for later! I come to see you, and I find you in a yokel's barn with peasants for attendants and no guards for your back-how long have you been left alone here?"

"Oh, I've only been here since this morning-"